Aid Effectiveness in the Health Sector

Progress and Lessons

Aid plays an important role in reducing poverty and inequality, stimulating growth,
building capacity, promoting human development and accelerating the achievement of
the Millennium Development Goals. Effective aid is critical both to maximise the impact
of aid and to achieve long-term, sustainable development.

Aid to the health sector has increased substantially over the last 20 years from
USD 5 billion in 1990 to USD 21.8 billion in 2007. Consisting of a growing and diverse
range of actors, aid to the health sector faces complex governance and management
challenges: for example, donors inadvertedly invest in duplicate and fragmented efforts,
while partners are unable to take full responsibility and leadership. By reviewing
these challenges against the aid effectiveness principles outlined in the landmark
2005 Paris Declaration and 2008 Accra Agenda for Action, this report provides insight
and expounds lessons from the health sector to the broader challenges of aid effectiveness.
Health, then, is used as a “tracer” sector to help assess the risks and benefits of
the diverse range of actors, and promote co-ordination and coherence among development
programmes.

This work is the result of a collaboration between the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness
– an inclusive, international forum with the aim of improving aid delivery – through
its Task Team on Health as a Tracer Sector and the World Trade Organization.